Nella Last's Peace Read online

  The next day, Saturday 26th, Nella started to feel ‘queer and light headed’, and by the 29th she was sick in bed, apparently with the flu. Her diary entries became shorter and (most unusually) she did not write at all on a couple of days. Only in the second week of February was her health improving, though still haltingly, and it was some time till she recovered her strength.

  Saturday, 9 February. It was bright sunshine this morning, and when I looked out of the dining room window I saw a little flash of gold in the border and I put on my coat and went out to look at it – my first crocus – and beside it three frail snowdrops danced and nodded in the keen wind. The crab-apple tree plainly shows tiny buds, and the rambler roses have had leaf buds for a while. I felt as always the miracle of spring, of life from seeming death. All was quiet except for the crying gulls overhead. My little garden seemed a precious thing as I walked down the path, already in my mind’s eye seeing the colour and beauty of what will soon be. The stirring life shows in little weeds and tufts of grass in the crazy paving, the bulbs pushing through and that uplift of bare branches before the buds break through …

  Inside me I’m growing very old, and it’s as if I feel a wide vision, less tendency to worry and fret, to tell God all about things rather than to pray. There’s a lot of truth in the old saying ‘It’s the happiest time of your life when your children are round your knees.’ I feel I would have been a happier woman with a ‘long’ family, with young things still to love and cherish and not just a little mog of a cat, wise and kindly as he is. As I lay back in the chair tonight I felt a great sadness on me, not altogether flu after-effects. I don’t like the blueish patches on my cheeks and lips if I have any exertion. I hope I am not going to have to step aside from any little I could do to help. There is so much to do and life slips so swiftly by.

  I tried to talk to my husband and tell him what was in my mind, but he only looked blankly at me. He said, ‘I cannot see what you are worrying about. You have done more than anyone else I know. You should be glad when you can take things easy.’ I suppose he is right to a certain extent, but I feel torn in two sometimes when I think of the frightened, homeless people, of hopeless mothers with little hungry children, of homeless, cold, old ones. I feel I’ve a wailing wall in my heart. If I could only feel I was helping. I realise more and more the goodness of God when I was able to work steadily through the war, through the worry of Cliff’s illness, and the weary weeks when he was so out of joint with life. My husband said, ‘You must start going to the pictures in an afternoon like other women’, but I feel when it’s warmer weather I’d sooner work in the garden than go to see pictures I’d no interest in. It’s all right if it’s a good picture, but we do seem to have had poor ones lately on the whole. Unless anyone was in the habit of going they would not have been attracted.

  Tuesday, 12 February. I had a little weep over Cliff’s letter today – a bright, somewhat impersonal letter with the sting in the last when he signed himself ‘Your wabbit’. The years rolled away and I recalled the first time I’d called him that. He was an infuriating baby, and my husband never had any patience with children. I was ill after a major operation and Cliff had grown really beyond them all, only good on the occasions he had been brought in the hospital. That particular night the wild shrieks and my husband’s loud, angry voice had distressed me terribly and I could not rise and go downstairs. I’d only been home a few days. Suddenly the bedroom door opened with a crash and a wildly yelling and kicking baby was hurled on my bed – poor lamb, he was only nineteen months old – and my husband shouted, ‘I can do nothing with the little devil. I feel like killing him.’ I reached down and patted my angry baby and said gently, ‘He is not naughty, Daddy. He is only a tired little wabbit who wants to cuddle up to Mammy wabbit.’ He stopped roaring, looked a bit surprised, and then nodded as he crawled, slippers and dirty play overall, into my bed and cuddled up. Later I drew his clothes off and he slept all night as he had first laid down, and somehow I’d found the way to quieten his tantrums. I think he found things too much for him at times. As he grew up there was always a mood he had called ‘wabbitish’, and I always tried to plan a little outing or try and find his worry.

  Wednesday, 13 February. My husband and I had a little laugh when we recalled the time Cliff was born and I was so ill for weeks, unable to get my strength back at all. I had a queer eccentric doctor, who relieved other doctors and lived in one of the loveliest old houses I’ve seen, with a charming wife quite twenty years younger than he was and two clever children, one at Eton and the girl at Girton. (He had tried to replace a doctor called up in the war before last.) He said, ‘She should have champagne, oysters, beefsteak – tempting food. These nervous patients are the devil, you know. Give me a person who likes to eat, every time.’ As I lived in the New Forest, had no pull with any tradesman or knew no one likely to be able to get any extras, we just dismissed the whole idea, but out of his own cellar he brought all kinds of wine beside champagne! – and all kind of little dainties, crisp red apples and grapes from his own growing. He said, ‘I like North Country folk – they always put up a good fight’ – and then used to sit and tell me of his years as an Army surgeon, and as the great uncle who took Mother to bring up when Grandfather died was also an Army doctor and I could remember yarns Mother told of life and conditions in the Crimean War, we always had an interest. He had everything in life, but looked back wistfully to, and clearly enjoyed, his war work – and I never got a bill. He said when Cliff was so tiny, ‘Oh, he will grow; we’ll make a soldier of him yet’, never realising how true his words would be.

  Norah’s husband, who had served in the Navy, was about to return from Australia, and the couple were to move into a house at 24 Ilkley Road.

  Friday, 15 February. Margaret came in for a while. She seems to have lost a lot of her gaiety somehow – like most of us lately! Norah and Mrs Atkinson are cleaning Norah’s house up the street. They have got a shock to realise it might be months before Norah gets her furniture. She has not got her dockets yet and then there is often a wait of up to six months. None of us had realised that. Norah thought of being able to have all ready when Dick comes home at the end of March. My husband was busy book-keeping and all was quiet. I’ve got out a piece of Jacobean embroidery I started before the war and had forgotten about. Its gay wools are cheerful to work with, but there is a great deal of thread counts in it and my hands tire of close stitching and holding the frame. I wish it had been a tray. I could do with a new one.

  Arthur and Edith are finding how tiresome it is to be waiting for builders to finish a house. They relied on their word it would be finished by the middle of February, and the roof tiles don’t seem to be on yet and then there will be a lot to do inside. The prefabs at Barrow are a laughing stock. If they are all like these in the country, there’s a deal of time being wasted. The plumbing arrangements which were supposed to be so simple that one man could assemble them and connect in eight hours have taken a man three weeks for the first one and he is still at it.

  Tuesday, 19 February. Everything seems to have conspired to irritate or worry me. No letter from Cliff to say whether he had yet got his washing, gramophone or his watch he should have received yesterday morning. I’d one phone call after another, two tedious people to pay bills, and my milk boiled over – all over the stove – and then to put the cap on things I put some garden rubbish on the fire my husband had left to blow over the rockery, and set my chimney on fire! Luckily no policeman was about and the thick cloud of smoke blew away, but I got palpitations so bad I felt I’d choke and had to lie down. Luckily I’d got my casserole of mutton out of the weekend meat, leeks, celery and potatoes and had made the steamed date pudding yesterday so I’d only soup to heat and sauce to make. I sat and cleaned my bits of brass and silver so that tomorrow I could bake a cake and work with Mrs Cooper a little.

  I was down town for 1.30. I left my lunch dishes in water so as to have plenty of time to walk slowly to the bus stop. My h
airdresser has another girl and is booked up for weeks except for odd appointments. No more perms can be pushed in for three weeks. I said, ‘It’s odd, after Xmas and so long before Easter. You are generally slack, aren’t you?’ She said, ‘Yes, but don’t forget women are getting ready to meet demobbed husbands and many certainly need a perm. They have put off and put off, often if working, with not much time.’ The heat of the cubicle made me realise how much better it was to be first customer in the morning. I booked my usual appointment for Saturday morning week but had to take it at ten o’clock instead of nine.

  This time I have needed house slippers for months and the ones I made have got completely done with wearing them so much lately, so I bought a new pair today, deep blue leather ones with a bit of black fur round, and at one time I’d have got better ones at Marks & Spencer’s for their ceiling price of 4s 11d – and paid 14s 9d and five coupons. The awful felt and cloth things for four coupons made me realise how valuable a coupon was when people would buy gay trash for 23s 9d if they could spare one wee coupon! All the fish had gone, but when I saw the huge cod heads and kipper boxes I felt I didn’t want either herring or coarse fish. I’d have liked a bit of plaice or a Dover sole. There were lots of sweet biscuits about, but I didn’t get any. I’ve only fourteen points left after getting raisins, for most of my points go in tinned milk, beans and peas, cornflakes – since I’ve had a little with my Bemax† for breakfast and supper – and dried fruit. I was lucky enough to get a box of Braggs charcoal biscuits. I used to always have them if I felt my tummy. Little things like charcoal biscuits and rest after meals did more good than anything.

  I was glad to get back home, and I had a rest till teatime, glad indeed I had got in when I did, for a shrill wind sprang up and brought heavy rain showers. I did cheese on toast for tea and there was baked egg custard and bottled damsons, malt bread, wholemeal bread and butter, honey and plain cake. There seems a lot of misunderstanding about the clothes coupons – amazing the people who think they are extra, not having listened properly to the broadcast. Even Mrs Atkinson had it wrong, saying what a good help it would be, when underclothes are simply fading away. I wangled a few coupons off Cliff, thinking of Margaret, but before I could spend them – with being ill – he sent for his book back, but I told him I’d like a few later if he could spare them. I badly need a few new towels. Wartime ones have not the wear in them that the pre-war ones had, and perhaps the laundries don’t use the soap they did, relying more on chemicals which would rot fabric. Giving our Lakehead Laundries every credit due though, they have been marvellous. They are a big firm, travelling the outlying districts, but the van men and shop (receiving) people never leave them. Several have been there all my married life and it’s like the small business, which I prefer. I can tell there will be a pretty good changeover of grocers and butchers when rationing cards are issued again. Due to general unrest and memory of wartime unfairness – often no fault of the shopkeepers – women seem to have reached the end of their patience and feel any change will be better than going on.

  Nella had lauded this laundry service several years before, in her Directive Response for May 1939. ‘Here in this district’, she said, ‘we have the most wonderful laundry I’ve ever struck. It operates all over the Lake District from Carlisle to Ingleton in Yorkshire. Generally a monopoly makes for indifferent service, but not in this case. Clothes are beautifully and carefully washed and there are three services to pick from. I choose the middle … They are washed as well as the first class but only flat ironed. At that the shirts, etc. are better finished than high priced services in most laundries I’ve used in different parts of the country. By this service I find it cheaper to send the bulk of my wash rather than have a washerwoman.’

  Norah Atkinson came in, looking utterly spent. She and her mother are cleaning out her house, which had been neglected, and they are distempering the pantry and one bedroom themselves and getting ready for the painter. I felt it was false economy to spare a few shillings and take it out of Norah – Mrs A. is as strong as a horse. The kettle was boiling and they had a cup of Bovril. I suggested it as a better pick-me-up than tea, and I made toast and they spread it with soft cheese – such nice cheese this week.

  No letter from Cliff again. I don’t know whether he has got his washing or gramophone, and he should have got his watch yesterday. He used to be mannerly if nothing else in his letters, answering them with detail. Now he often forgets to tell me whether he gets his laundry.

  Thursday, 28 February. We settled by the radiator, I thought for a quiet evening, until my husband began to wonder what he could hang on the wall in place of the picture I would not have up again. Then the balloon went up. I felt something snap in my tired head. He got told a few things – not altogether connected with the picture! Yet through all my anger and annoyance I strove to control my tongue a little. With so many of his uncles and his father ageing so soon, he has always feared it. At fifty he had the worn-out physique and mentality of a man ten or fifteen years older and any energy of mind or body has gone in his day’s work. I feel such a deep pity for him. It’s made me give way so much, but I wonder if it’s been altogether wise. I think of the real squalor of mind and body of his people’s home. I see the writing on the wall as I strive to keep things together, try to interest him in outside things – in the boys and their affairs – making excuses for him always, that he is tired or worried or busy. Tonight I could have run out into the cold wintry night and ran and ran till I dropped. Boyishness, which is engaging at twenty, can be childishness at thirty, and each ten years grow more hard to put up with. I came to bed, feeling things work out. I felt lost and a little adrift when he decided he would like to sleep alone, but it’s another oddity of the family and now I’m glad of it. I feel my bed is a peaceful haven where I can relax alone and read or write, try and sort out my values, and count my blessings.

  Friday, 1 March. Mrs Howson called for me to go to Canteen and I posted a little parcel of bits for Aunt Sarah in case we couldn’t get up this weekend – a tin of soup, a scrap of marg and dripping, a slice of bacon left from what I’m brought and a bit of cheese. There is so little to give nowadays. It often gives me a sadness. Somehow so much of the ‘sweet’ of life has passed. How can we teach children to be unselfish, to ‘pass the sweeties’, ‘give a bite of their apple’ or ‘break a piece of cake off and give a bit to the poor doggie’? It used to be said of a greedy adolescent, ‘Well, he was the only one and there was no one to share things with.’ A generation is growing up who don’t know what it is to have many little goodies themselves, and even tiny tots know the value of points and what is rationed.

  Sometimes I think all the colour as well as sweetness is dormant, if not dead. I see Norah Atkinson borrowing oddments for her new home – and she is so grateful for my old curtains. When I reflect that I bought them in 1939, had them always up at my front windows, mended the glass cuts after the raids, turned them so that the faded side was inside and then altered them for the dining room where the remaining colour was almost bleached out by the sun – I feel they are no treasure. I wondered whether to cover two old thin blankets with them, and wondered if it would be worth the trouble. Little things annoy and, on the other hand, delight women. If bright gay curtain material could be coupon free – say four yards on each coupon book – it would mean such a lot. If it only meant one window bright – there doesn’t seem much hope though, and everything grows shabbier and more down at heel.

  Saturday, 2 March. It was a lovely bright morning, but cold enough to keep the snow wherever the sun did not melt it. I was not feeling too bad with myself, just going slow, when my husband came in. Then the fun and games started. He was determined that all pictures should go back on the walls. I was as determined they should NOT. Knowing my hatred of a scene, I felt he played up, thinking I’d give way when the painter and Mrs Cooper were about, but this time he was quite mistaken. I’d got to that pitch of nerves when jumping on them would have been the
mildest thing I’d do. I’ve won, beyond my two good little oil paintings of Wartdale Lake and the tarn above Hawks-head, the mirror over the fireplace and the little carved garden mirror facing the window. My nice new wallpapered room is not cluttered. Of all outlooks to live with, the Victorian cum early Edwardian is the darndest – always to bring back mementos from a holiday and buy useless dust traps for presents, and never part with anything.

  Sunday, 3 March. Norah and Dick came in for a few minutes. He is delighted with the house, but rather taken back at the thought of Norah having to work for two years. He will not be able to pay £2 out of his wages for a beginning, so there seems little to be done if they want a house of their own at first. It’s so dreadfully hard on young people setting up a home. It strikes at the very root of happiness. He had brought a piece of coconut matting – from Woolworths at Gibraltar. It made me laugh when he spoke of shopping there, with all the shops in Sydney and the glamorous East. We went to Spark Bridge. I don’t feel happy about them if I don’t see them fairly often. They had not expected us with me sending the little parcel, so it was a nice surprise. Food seems scarcer than ever in the villages. It’s only with shopping in town there are any little extras, and just now there is so little in the gardens. I wish people would not keep saying, ‘Well, you have had no surprise when things worsened’, as if I’d gone round like Cassandra! Joe said, ‘You always said, lass, that things would be worse for a while after the war finished.’ I said, ‘Well, maybe, but I didn’t see quite the shortages and muddle, or take into account the Allies themselves would start to fall apart’ …